I live in an area where no one is politically correct. “Racist” jokes are made all the time. People say “retarded,” “gay,” and even, on occasion, “Jewish,” or we refer to each other and ourselves as Nazis. For this reason, my area is known as being white extremists and KKK.

The thing is that people who aren’t from this area don’t understand is that no one is serious when they make these remarks. Everyone knows that it’s all a JOKE! We DON’T believe that slavery is right, we DON’T approve of KKK or Nazi organizations, and although homosexuality isn’t widely accepted as OK, there are still a lot of people who don’t have a problem with homosexuals.

It’s true, my school is mostly made up of Caucasians. There’s one girl who’s ¼ Cherokee, and we make “offensive” remarks to her all the time. BIG DEAL! I’m a short ginger kid, and I get called “midget” and “leprechaun” all the time. There’s a very German-looking kid in our school, and everyone calls him a Nazi. There’s a Jewish person in our school, and he gets called “Jew.”

The point is that all of these remarks are meant benignly. NONE of them are meant to be offensive or even to be perceived as true. Well, except when I get called short, but that’s beside the point. The point is that my area isn’t racist. We all know that these remarks are only to be made among friends, and that in a public environment, these remarks are NEVER appropriate. But why should our light-hearted teasing be marked as an act of discrimination?